


the beautiful and the broken

by Brinny



Category: The Last Tycoon (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Celia Brady/Max Miner, Mentions of Kathleen Moore/Monroe Stahr, Mentions of Monroe Stahr/Minna Davis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 09:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17322458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brinny/pseuds/Brinny
Summary: "Celia can’t remember a time when she wasn’t in love with him.It isn’t until years later that they have an affair."[Post 1.09 - Monroe lives, yay!]





	the beautiful and the broken

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahaha. No one is going to read this.

Celia can’t remember a time when she wasn’t in love with him.

It isn’t until years later that they have an affair.

 

 

 

She says yes to Max because she thinks it will make her happy.

But it doesn’t.

He doesn’t.

And it’s not his fault. He’s sweet and attentive and immeasurably in love with her. He’s all the things that a young man she’s about to marry should be. Except that he’s not Monroe. And if Celia were a better person, maybe that wouldn’t matter. But she’s not and it does.

(She once heard Monroe describe her as _tremendously human_ and she was never quite sure if he had meant it as a compliment or as a criticism. She was always too afraid of what his answer would be to ask.)

 

 

 

When Celia is younger, she thinks she’s going to be an actress. Daddy will put her in the pictures and she will bat her eyelashes and pout prettily for the cameras and the whole world will fall in love with her.

 

 

 

Celia hates to think that she’s turned herself into some, sad Hollywood cliché.

She hates to think that she’s like one of those girls that her father hides beneath his desk when someone rushes into his office without knocking.

(Yes, she knows.)

 

Sometimes, Celia wonders what her life would have been like if she had stayed at Bennington. What would her life have been like if she had gotten a college education, only to waste it on being someone’s wife.

Would she plan extravagant parties and spend wild amounts of her husband’s money on expensive artwork and fur coats? Or would she simply drink every day and sleep with his business partner, like her mother?

(Yes, she knows that, too.)

 

Celia isn’t stupid.

She knows that people talk. She knows the whispers that float around the studio when they spend too long in his office with the door locked. She knows the gossip of this town.

But there’s a small part of her that almost likes it. She supposes it’s the same small part of her that’s left over from her childish, schoolgirl crush on him, that thinks, _Yes, Monroe Stahr chose me._

 

 

 

His hand grips at her thigh, moving her leg up around his hip, so he can press himself against her. He plays with the top of her stockings, as if they have the time to go slow. As if they have the time for him to tuck his fingers into the bend of her knee and as if they have the time for him to kneel in front of her and please her with his tongue. As if they have the time to make this into something that it’s not.

He places a soft kiss just below her ear and says, “I’ve missed you.”

“Show me.”

They fuck half-clothed, with her dress bunched up around her stomach and his pants around his ankles, their mouths desperate and needy. He pulls her close when he spills himself inside of her, holding her tight against his chest.

“We can’t keep doing this, Celia.”

“Can’t we?”

 

 

 

Whenever Celia spends the night, Monroe always picks her dress up off the floor and lays it neatly on the chair beside the bed.

It’s a sweet gesture, but she’s not sure it makes any of this less sordid.

 

 

 

She watches him sleep, and desperately thinks, _please, please love me_. _Please love me like I love you._

“We need to stop this,” he says, angry. “We have to stop.”

“Why?”

“Christ. How do you see this ending, Celia? Hmm?”

“I don’t.”

She shrugs, like it never occurred to her that it would end or that he would stop wanting her or that he wouldn’t fall hopelessly in love with her. (And it’s a lie, because it’s all she thinks about.)

Monroe’s face turns soft and sorry and he pulls her into his arms and kisses the top of her head.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

 

 

Her father is pleased when she calls off her engagement with “the Okie”. He tries to hide his smile behind his sincerity as he says, “I just want you to be happy, darling.”

Oh, if he only knew.

 

 

 

She never asks him to leave Kathleen. She knows that it would be bad for business.

Besides, it’s Minna who she has to compete with.

 

 

 

“Do you like being Monroe Stahr?”

His brow furrows in confusion. “Do you like being Celia Brady?”

“Well, that’s not the same, is it?” she asks. She uses her fingers to smooth out the creases on his forehead. “I’ve always been Celia Brady and you haven’t always been Monroe Stahr.”

“You mean, do I like being Monroe Stahr over Milton Sternberg?” he asks. “A name doesn’t define who a person is, Celia. Only how the rest of the world sees them.”

“Hmm,” she considers, thoughtfully. She cups his cheek and asks, “And how do you see me?”

“Celia, you’re the kind of person Hollywood dreams they could write pictures about.”

She’s flattered, but she plays coy. “Oh?”

“And you’re kind enough to love someone as broken as me.”

Celia’s heart aches for him. She thinks about the vase in his office and how alike they are. How they are both beautiful and broken and mended only so the cracks don’t show. ( _Beautiful and broken and belonging to Minna_ , she thinks.)

“Well, I think you’re lovely,” she says, her voice dropping down to a whisper, as if someone else will hear her confession. “Whoever you are, Monroe Stahr or Milton Sternberg, I think you’re absolutely lovely.”

 

 

 

She sometimes lets herself daydream about what would happen if he left Kathleen and married her.

She pictures the headline: _Third Time’s a Charm for Stahr!_ And, of course, there would be an accompanying photo of her and Monroe looking deliriously happy in one another’s arms.

( _How wonderful_ , she secretly thinks. And then she tries to feel guilty, but can’t help but feel pleased, instead.)

 

 

 

“Tell me a secret,” she commands.

“I once killed a man.”

Her lips work into a delicate pout. “It’s no fun if you don’t play.”

“Alright, here’s a secret: I am very, very much in love with you,” he says. With one hand in her hair, crumpling her curls, he pulls her closer and places a messy kiss on her mouth. “How’s that?”

She smiles. Says, “Better.”

 

 

 

Sometimes, when she frustrates him (which, it turns out, is often), he calls her by her full name.

She’s not quite sure what she did this time to warrant it, but he gives an angry sigh and then chases her all through the house, screaming, “Cecilia!”

Darn that extra syllable. She hates it.

“Yes, Milton?” she teases.

And she can see him fighting back a laugh, anger easily fading. He strokes her cheek with his thumb and says, “Behave.”

A nod. “Yes, Milton.”

He grins. “Oh, my mother would like you.”

 

 

 

“Why didn’t you get married, Celia?”

“To Max?” she asks. Her mouth moves into a frown. Monroe knows why she called off her engagement. Thinking that maybe he needs his ego stroked, she presses her hand to his cheek and coos, “Because I have you.”

He smiles appreciatively, lifting her hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss along the edge of her palm.

“And before Miner?” he asks. “Why didn’t you then?”

She laughs. “There was no one I found interesting.”

“And me?”

“You are terribly fascinating,” she supplies. She kisses him. “Maybe you should have asked me.”

 

 

 

Even though she knows that it’s an act, Celia can’t help the jealousy that burns through her when she sees Monroe with Kathleen at the opening of Brady-American’s newest picture.

Her heart squeezes, this sort of painful and longing ache in her chest, as she watches them smile and laugh and kiss for the cameras.

“Isn’t she a star?”

Monroe spins her around in front of an audience of photographers and the hem of her dress fans out around her legs, causing Kathleen to (pretend to) blush into his shoulder.

It’s the familiarity that bothers Celia, how easily Monroe turns his head to accept her kiss and how Kathleen simply shifts herself into his arms. It’s a reminder that they used to do this, without thinking and without practice, because, once, they were in love.

 

At the after party, Celia drinks too much champagne and shamelessly flirts with one of the waiters. She makes sure to catch Monroe’s eye as she delicately and purposefully preens for the boy.

Monroe frowns at her disapprovingly. She wants a confrontation. A fight over her. Big and public, with photos and write-ups in tomorrow’s gossip rags. But Monroe knows better than that.

Instead, he asks her to dance.

She smiles. “I would love to, Mr. Stahr.”

He holds her at a distance, his fingers tight over hers and hand high on her waist.

“Cecilia,” he says, voice strained from beneath his clenched jaw. “You’re acting wildly inappropriate.”

Celia laughs, drunk and dismissive. She moves herself closer to him, loosely draping her arm over his shoulder and tucking her head into the crook of his neck.

“Am I not an unattached woman?”

“Are you looking to be attached to the waiter?”

“You’re not my father, Monroe. Even if you’re old enough.”

Which isn’t at all true, but Celia can be mean when she drinks (perhaps _she_ is her father, she thinks distantly). Monroe only sighs and presses his cheek to her temple, so he can whisper in her ear.

“This isn’t easy for me either, Celia.”

“I can’t stand it,” she says. And she hates how childish it makes her sound, but she can’t help it. “Watching you with her. It’s awful.”

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

 

 

 

They often stay at his house on the beach, and Celia has gotten used to waking up to the sounds of waves crashing on the sand and the sight of Monroe sleepily looking at her with something she supposes is adoration.

“You would have made one hell of an actress, Celia.” He runs his finger down the bridge of her nose. “You certainly have the face for it.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she argues. “I don’t like being bossed around.”

He moves his thumb over her lower lip, softly rubbing at the spot where he’d like to kiss. But when he leans forward, he stops short of putting his mouth on hers and says, “I think you like it when I boss you around.”

“Oh, I do? Do I?”

She climbs on top of him and pins his arms above his head, lowering her lips to his neck.

He concedes, “Well, sometimes.”

 

 

 

The papers find out about the affair.

It isn’t too hard. They haven’t exactly been very discrete as of late.

There’s a series of photos of the two of them at an industry party that run in the weekend edition of the Hollywood Reporter: one where his hand sits low on her back, tips of his fingers hidden beneath the fabric of her dress; one where they’re dancing so close that Monroe’s lips rest against her bare shoulder; and one where her head is bent next to his ear in a whisper, her lipstick smeared along the collar of his shirt.

Her father is furious.  

Kathleen plays up her part as the victim for the press.

Monroe gives her a ring.

And Celia tries to pretend that this is everything she ever wanted.

 

 

 

“Is this what you thought it would be like?”

Monroe moves his knuckles over the bare skin of her back, stroking soft and slow.

Celia knows what he’s asking. He really means, _is this what she thought_ he _would be like. Is this what she thought him loving her would be like._

She thinks about lying. She thinks about putting on a happy smile and telling him that it’s even better than she ever could have imagined, that _he_ is even better than she ever could have imagined.

Instead, she shakes her head sadly, kisses a spot on his shoulder, and says, “No.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of things taken from the unfinished book, _The Last Tycoon_ :
> 
> 1\. In his notes for Celia Brady, Fitzgerald describes her as "tremendously human", which is both a very beautiful description and how I thought that Monroe might view her, so I shamelessly stole it. 
> 
> 2\. There is a conversation that Celia and Monroe have in the book about her not being married (a similar one takes place in the pilot where they talk about her potential engagement to Wylie White) wherein she asks how she would attract someone who is interesting, which was inspired/paraphrased for the conversation they have in the fic. (In book, Monroe actually offers to marry her, but that he's too old and tired to undertake anything. To which Celia replies, "Undertake me" and damn if that's just not the perfect bit for these two.)
> 
> Also, Celia is refered to as both Cecilia and Celia in the book, but obvioulsy just Celia in the show, so I made an excutive decision that Celia is a diminuative.


End file.
